This invention relates to energy consumption control systems which reduce energy consumption during peak hours of demand by causing selected energy consumming appliances to automatically disconnect themselves from their supply of energy.
In the past, energy consumption control systems have been designed for use with electrical energy supply systems as illustrated by U.S. Pat. Nos. to Anderson, et al. (3,946,243) and Conde, et al. (4,152,605). These systems, however, rely exclusively upon the imposition of signal distortions on the electrical energy supply line to effectuate cut-off control. Unfortunately, not only are such systems not readily adaptable to controlling consumption of non-electrical energy sources such as gas, but they would not be compatible with energy consumming appliances which require an undistorted source of electrical energy supply to properly operate. Thus, these energy consumption control systems are not seen as capable of providing an adequate solution to the general problem of energy consumption control.
Although the Detroit Edison Company has been using for some years FM radio signals to remotely control the operation of water heaters (as evidenced by the IEEE Transmission and Distribution Committee of the IEEE Power Group recommended paper entitled "Radio Control of Water Heaters and Distribution Station Voltage Regulators," available for printing on Apr. 15, 1969), this system requires the installation of expensive FM radio transmitters and antennae. Moreover, this system requires the FCC to dedicate to the utility a separate segment of the radio communication band, thus further crowding this already heavily used means of communication.